From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Wed Sep 24 2003 - 13:41:11 MDT
[Lucifer]
Is the problem due to lack of information or lack of incentive? If the former, I could set it up so that there is an announcement made to the list or one of the BBS boards when someone joins the system. If the latter, we could discuss possibilities for engineering greater incentive. I question if the reputation system is leading us into something better. It was a greta idea, but I think we're finding out in reality it isn't going to work.
[rhinoceros]
After all the discussion in this thread, I am afraid we can say that lack of information is the lesser problem. Not that an announcement would do any harm.
We'll probably have to discuss incentives or automatic software assisted methods, or even the purpose of a fully functional rating and voting system itself.
[Elvensage 1]
I think you bring up a good point Rhino. The reputation system has made "playing politics' in the Virus community a lot more real. I had discussed it with a few people pre-reputations, but it is so obvious now.
[rhinoceros]
Yes, it is politics, as in dealing with the commons. The term sounds negative because, in its common use, it applies to the politicians. I suspect that the indifference of the voters comes from there as well. It is an interesting experiment to see if we can do better.
We often feel that politicians are voted for something and are doing something entirely different and we are helpless because we can't send them away in mid term. We often take it for granted that we are at their mercy in the meanwhile. This is not so bad here.
Another interesting difference is that in our relatively small community we get to chat with the "top" ones every day and that we have a chance to go to the "top" ourselves. On the one hand, this is an incentive to get involved in the commons. On the other hand, it can also create real and personal disappointment when someone stays low in the reputation system. It reminds me of the experiment with the rebelious apes. This theory can be confirmed if the people at lower places are the ones who stopped voting after some point in time.
http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=29275
http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=29284
[Elvensage 1]
If you're nice to everyone, and you do not get into conflicts, and do not share your opinion on anything contriversal you'll be promoted upward. If you say what you think, you end up lower on the list.
[rhinoceros]
Not true. You have always been high up in the reputation system because of your contribution in CoV. When some people downvoted you, you lost some decimal points, and it was only a coincidence that you dropped below 7. I can see that now, you are above 7 again. Hermit's rating also has had some fluctuations because of the incidents he has been involved in. I think that nobody's contribution has been ignored by the voters, at least as long as enough people take the trouble to click on that button over there.
[Elvensage 1]
I'm not going to play politics on here. I'm going to be honest, and say what I think. I think it would be a good idea if everyone stopped caring about the reputation system. Even better, I think at this point it might be a good idea to remove it. (Yes I'm feeling very bold and upfront tonight.)
[rhinoceros]
The reputation system gives some more weight to this opinion of yours, but I will not agree just yet.
[Elvensage 2]
Doesn't that in itself show that we're having some major problems with the presented means of control? The reputation system was a great idea, and it is one of those things that somewhat has a purpose, I'm not sure how to govern a group like this myself, but at the same time I feel the system in place creates a lot of problems. Sure, there isn't as much spam, but the fun-factor of Virus seems to have died.
Maybe saying "tear down the system!" isn't what I should have said, but we realyl need to find a way to get this place functional again. Look how many posts are posted now... hardly any. When I started the CoV I had rtouble keeping up with all the posts. There was always something interesting, or fun to read. I'm not seeing that as much now. Anyone have any good suggestions?
[rhinoceros]
Hey, the rep systemn has not been given any administrative powers for CoV yet. And we seem to be back at having fun lately.
[Kid-A]
I have to agree with you on this one ElvenSage, and mainly because I have seen many new members to the CoV join the reputation system and now have a slightly negative opinion, even though very few people have voted for them, I think the problem is that posts which I have found to be generally quite good are not concidered by most people and only their activity on #virus is taken into account.
I'm not saying get rid of the reputation system completely, but I still think integrating it with the Karma in some way might be a good experiment.
[rhinoceros]
I can see members who have been given very high but very few votes, and if you don't check you'll think that people have negative opinions about them. I think participation is the key.
1. Direct participation in the current form of the system: For this, we'l have to overcome:
- Lack of information
- The "nothing changes" syndrome
- The "apes for justice" syndrome
Maybe restoring the results to "sorted by rep" could give some additional incentive to the top half of the table, but I am not sure about that.
2. Indirect (software assisted) participation, in a form not requiring us to get out of our way to vote. We could try to figure out a way to use the Karma system, but it does not seem easy to make it give meaningful results, and there is also participation in the #virus IRC channel which should be rated.
---- This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2003 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=29293> --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 24 2003 - 13:44:19 MDT